


Love is an Open Door

by brainrockets



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Short One Shot, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22979050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brainrockets/pseuds/brainrockets
Summary: Series finale kind of fix it. Eleanor contemplates a door and makes a different choice.
Relationships: Chidi Anagonye/Eleanor Shellstrop, Janet (The Good Place)/Eleanor Shellstrop, Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza/Janet (The Good Place)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Love is an Open Door

**Author's Note:**

> Un-Beta'd, so all mistakes are my own.

Eleanor walked towards the door. She had done everything she could think of, dream of, or come up with on a dare or semi-drunkenly decide to do. She couldn't really think of anything else to do. Nearly everyone else was gone, they'd found their peace or their purpose and she'd come full circle, alone again. Alone was fine, she was still a bad bench here on this kinda lame bench. Why did they decide on a bench again? She figured resignation to the wave was close to peace, so she supposed she'd follow the others to whatever was next. 

She and Janet sat watching the door, Margs in hand, her hands small, Janet's cosmically larger. She stalled for a while, enjoying the peace of the forest, her last remaining friend at her side. Janet asked to stay, Janet their rock (not a marble), their best not a robot, not a girl, and Eleanor feels a little selfish. Not quite as selfish as she felt knowing how long Chidi had stayed for her and still begging him not to leave her. But still, it's a familiar feeling, laced with dismay the way it always feels when she’s not content with her choices. 

She also feels, suddenly like she does when she understands something new because she sees how sad Janet is. Perfectly resigned, unruffled per usual and kinda smoking hot, but definitely sad. She knows the feeling, she decides--since she woke to find her bed cold and empty except for the awfully thoughtful Chidi calendar and the prospect of many bearimys remaining to get down solo with her bad self. She is struck with the loss of Jason, and Chidi and Tahani and Michael all over again and she knows eventually they will all be beyond where Janet can follow. 

She reaches for Janet then, holds out her hand and is met with Janet's not really a hand and they sit like that for a while. Watching the door and the unknown. Eleanor feels the pull of the door, less like a wave and more like a deadly undertow. They have both been left behind and bereft at the end. Jason and Chidi have returned to whatever primordial goo wave everyone comes from and now all there is to do is join them, for peace. And all that zen shirt. 

Eleanor rests her head on Janet's broad shoulder and knows for whatever reason, she's not ready to go forward. Maybe she's just not made for peace, given how she's so perfectly crafted for trouble. A rocking bod like hers is pretty eternal. She doesn't want to be an architect, like Tahani, but she still wants more. She's not sure what else there is, but she catches Janet's eye and they set off back to the Good Place. Hand in hand-shaped infinity.


End file.
